


the world is good and we belong here

by GStK



Series: i just finally heard that unnoticed silence of never having one again [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV, Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 05:04:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20186731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GStK/pseuds/GStK
Summary: you’re going to diein your best friend’s arms.and you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down.





	the world is good and we belong here

**Author's Note:**

> FFXIV AU. Second Person PoV.  
Spans all of Shadowbringers. Major spoilers ahead.

a world without stars. a world where false hope is a foundation. a world where the water falls up and tears are words you write down on paper.

(a world like this, he said, i'll give to you.) 

a world like this, we'll suck out all the empty and bring back god to his throne.

we'll bring back god and then we'll kill him, once and for all.

* * *

“you don’t like your hair long.” 

“you don’t like it either, clod,” you answer, and you feel his breathy laughter on the back of your neck. it’s accompanied by the fresh slice of strands from your head, clumps falling to the floor. belial is doing a haphazard and half-assed job, too busy counting the goosebumps on your skin in his serpentine, xaelan tongue.

“well, me? i can go for anything. i’m pretty flexible.”

“are you now.”

“you’ve seen it,” he boasts, pressing a kiss of many more upon you. he worries his fangs lightly, and you’re sure he’s trying to make marks. with your neck exposed, there will be no hiding it, now. (so you will hike up your collar higher, and he will laugh again, and he will put an arm around you.)

the desperation you imagined has yet to break surface. instead, it skims the top of the water, coming and going in little bursts. a prolonged kiss here; a murmur of nhaama’s name there. when you have wanted a man so madly and so badly that you are his event horizon and his black hole--

\-- well. you woudn’t know anything about that, would you?

“mind if i leave the right side long?”

“do what you want.”

“i always do,” he grins against your neck, “and it’s always you.”

another snip and another toss of hair to the floor. eventually he takes a big chunk of the thing, as though he’s sensed your patience about to snap, and he cuts it off like slitting the throat of an enemy from another tribe here.

you look to the starless night outside. there are no tribes here. there is only diaspora. there is only entropy approaching its limit, and every need to break the laws of space-time.

* * *

“well, seeing as how you’re not the warrior of light --”

“are we truly so sure about that?” the exarch presses, hardly wilting under your glare. he’s a small thing in white, a flower tucked into brown hair. the crimson guard disputing your presence would be something to fear, instead, if you were someone who believed in that.

“i am not. and i will have nothing to do with him or with you,” you answer plainly, lips pursed. belial gives a curious glance over your shoulder.

“hey, cil, is this the part where we take the exarch hostage until he lets us go home? something like that, right?” he says, only breeming at the sight of percival taking a demanding step forward.

“you cur--!”

“i’m afraid i can’t do that,” the exarch says with a slight shake of his head. the leader of an entire city of people, the saviour of all… and this is what he does. he bends time and space to pluck you out of your world so you can save his. he couldn’t even land the right person.

fah. you have nothing to do with the warrior of light. nothing at all.

“hmph. i hardly need you to return me. belial, come. we will find our own way.” without further prompting, you leave the brightly-lit room, abandoning it and its shining paragons in need. belial is behind you without question.

he only opens his mouth when you are out of the tower entirely and striding the length of the crystarium.

“you really sure about that, cil? i’ve been here for a while, see, and i haven’t managed to find hide or hair of a way back except through that guy.”

“we will find our own way,” you say. “or do you doubt what i am capable of?”

“oh, spicy, spicy! i’d never doubt you, cil. never ever.”

the everbright sky mocks you, but so does the idea of returning. this world is new, and it must take a knee to chaos. it’s an objective.

and it’s a world free of your shade, for now. neither of you have a need to mention how you will never go back.

* * *

(when you had seen him, first -- 

it had been on the eve you were summoned. it must have been evening despite the white light outside; you knew it to be so. you knew, also, that you were being tugged along by a force much lesser than god, and with one pained breath spent in the steppe, the next sprawled naked on a blue floor, you were not pleased.

you had seen him. he had seen you. he had given you one glance before he turned to the exarch, who was, as you would learn later, never without his long-suffering dog at his side.

“whoops!” belial had called, tossing a thick robe over you. the last you had spoken to him, he was slipping under because of an unknown fever. he had not woken since then and his last words had been that he loved you. he was, as always, a foolish man. “exy, exarch! looks like you pried the wrong guy out of the aether! and after all that work i put into guiding you. way to finish soon!”

“i can see that,” the exarch had said, looking troubled by your presence. and yet, with the same look of disappointment in his eye, there had been a boyish hope, a curiosity. “in fact, i do not seem to have plucked a man at all--”

“cil is plenty man for both you _ and _me. don’t be shy, now. say something to him.”

“exarch…” the crimson guard had muttered, sighing under his breath. “you must rest. each one of these attempts only winds you more.”

but he had looked at you, the exarch, and he had done as he was not supposed to do. he took his steps, and he leaned down in front of you, taking a knee like a king to a measly subject.

“cil? is that your name?” he had said with warmth. “you are not the one i was looking for, though you resemble him greatly. it’s my own lack of skill that caused this. i’m sorry for what i’ve brought you into, but… perhaps you can help me? perhaps you can help us.”

you were not the one.

so you had opened your mouth, and like a man starved, belial had stood up straighter.

“i will,” you had wheezed, “kill you.”

and then you had collapsed. belial had laughed about it later. you had let him.)

* * *

(when he had seen you, first --

it had been a long time. for you, it had been days; for him, years. he had looked at you and he had opened his mouth, said his words, covered up the goddess’ mistake for you. he had made friends of the men in the crystarium already. he had nothing but weariness, and everything but weariness, and his shoulders stayed straight and his back tall while he bore the weight of the blade on his back.

the way he walked had changed, just a little. in those early days you were bright and hopeless. _ work _ , said your fingers. _ understand _, said eyes to the fingers. and the rest of the world had kept its stillful, frozen light that you understood all at once.

“i would’ve waited a thousand years for you if that’s what it took,” he confessed one brilliant starless night, your fingertips stroking his chin, his hands settled at your waist.

“hmph. and where would you have gotten all that time?”

“i’d make do!” he had laughed. “hey, hey. don’t doubt me, cil. there’s a lot a buduga can accomplish. i’d make the time if i had to -- steal it, if that’s what it came down to. all so i could see you again.”

… just as the crystal exarch had done to this place. his hundred years of waiting for the one had brought only misery, even while its people would pretend their lives had worth. generations had never seen the moon. _ warriors of darkness_, they hissed like a curse, and you had understood they were all without hope. valueless.

he told you all the stories he could tell even when you weren’t listening. when you were, he was silent, and he would gaze upon you like you were the only black dwarf this star had ever seen. he was never so overt before, never so wanting, never so direct. he had found a way to bend space-time and get to you.

“fool,” you had said, not as a curse but as a blessing, and he had smiled. he had kissed you and you had kissed him back. you were the fool to begin with.)

* * *

there is a man with brown hair and dark eyes who flinches at the sight of you. you would not care, normally, because the elders here have looked at you as a naked anomaly. this time, however -- you do not care. you do not care because your eyes travel next to the company of the one he keeps.

the warrior of light, the anti-shade who shares your hair and your face. he is taller than you, more nimble in his movements, and he is coming straight for you.

belial cuts in between you before he can make contact. with a sly grin, he places a hand on the man’s shoulder. “hey there, soldier. you’re a sight for sore eyes. how can we help you?”

at a step’s delay, the man’s companions come up behind him. there is a blue-haired girl who resembles a feather, light and airy, dressed in designs of dragon and red that do not suit. there is the man who had looked at you like a ghost, or perhaps as an enemy, and he narrows his eyes at you now. you are, however, drawn back to the gaze of the warrior of light, who draws you into his orbit like the sun.

“why, hello,” he greets politely, not unlike a wisp of air that has blown its way through a musty room. you hate it, the sound of his voice. it’s like windchimes and the sound of _ happily ever after_. “the crystal exarch told me of where to find you. i understand he brought you here by mistake… as it was i he was seeking. i was only hoping to make amends…”

it’s not true at all. you can see it in the thin smile on his face. you do not answer, and the teeth belial shows get a little more sharp.

“really? well, pleased to meet you. you think we could get your name first before we get down and dirty?”

“of course,” he says, “i am lucio, and i am the warrior of light.” as if you did not know already. you do not realise how quite stiff you are until the blue-haired girl takes another step forward, and belial puts a hand on your shoulder.

“i’m lyria! n-nice to meet you!” she’s looking shocked at the whole situation, but it’s as if she’s trying to dig her heels in and prepare herself for something that’s already come. foolish.

“sandalphon?” the warrior of light prompts when what comes next is silence. it defeats the purpose. still, after a glance that makes the brown-haired man wilt in weakness, he grumbles.

“my name is sandalphon. we are students of the art of red magic.”

“that’s black and white magic, together!” lyria supplies. you cannot help yourself from hmphing at her presumptions. belial looks like he’s holding back a laugh.

“and you are lucilius,” lucio finishes, which turns the edges of your lips down. “i have heard much about you, friend. Hydaelyn, our Goddess, told me of you.”

“and what would _ she _ know of me? of anything?” you bite back, your voice even lower than sandalphon’s. it’s tight like your muscles, which try to will you away as if all your tendons were magic.

“She knows that you do not belong, and She feels for you. She has been quiet for some time, even before we traversed the gap from the source to this world… but i know Her will. She would bring us together, so you might understand your true nature.”

when you are silent still, lucio smiles, trying to take you off your guard. or perhaps he is amused by you? either way, rage floods through your veins. “we are looking to save this star’s new Speaker from the clutches of eulmore. you have heard of them, have you not? they are a palace of sin and pleasure that seeks to stoke conflict between their nation and the crystarium. would you help us?”

you would not. you will not. and yet, before you can open your mouth, belial is opening his. “you really know how to work up a guy, don’t you?”

“... i beg your pardon?”

they share a repertoire of words that flushes lyria’s face and turns sandalphon’s into a scowl. it’s a mess of noise, a cacophony. you ignore it all to look beside the warrior of light, where which stands…

the one you always knew was there. lucifer. the angel himself. you catch just a glimpse of him, and he meets your eyes, and at the same instant he is a shadow and he is gone.

the one you’ve been longing for and the one you have forever been waiting to see, your theory proven right. you don’t tear your eyes away from that spot. belial says, with a slight inclination towards you, “so we’d be happy to come along. isn’t that right, cil?”

“do whatever you like.”

lyria takes your words as whiplash. sandalphon gives you a strange look, a look of mixed confusion and understanding. and the warrior of light, the nightmare that has spawned in all of your dreams?

he smiles.

* * *

(a moment you do not see:

the crystal exarch. the captain of his guard. there is one small man next to one of great height. the one in the red bends low, and the crystal exarch runs fingers through the man’s long ears, one hand soft and the other crystal.

"exarch,” says percival, “do you truly know what you’re doing?” he shuts his eyes, as though he is weighing the situation, as though he is enjoying the attention. and why can it not be both?

“percival,” the exarch replies, “call me as you used to. before this place was built up. before you got older and started thinking of me as a king.”

“but you are,” percival protests. “you are the ruler of the crystarium. you have saved countless lives throughout your years. how could i not…?”

“percival,” chides the exarch, and when their eyes meet under his hood, he smiles. “i’ll call you percy, if that’s what you want. i remember what a bright-eyed child you used to be…”

“please…” percival groans. he shuts his eyes once more. “that was a lifetime ago.” before his village was taken. before his mother was turned into a sin eater before his very eyes and he was forced to strike her down. the exarch knows all of these things. “... gran.”

“yes, percival?”

“do you truly know what you’re doing?” he repeats.

gran smiles, and he removes his hood, his red hair, his brown eyes, his ears and his fractured face with its encroaching crystal all in stark relief. he’s an allagan monster. when percival looks at him, though, he does not feel very much like a monster. he feels miqo’te again, mystal, as the people of this star would call it.

“i don’t. but i can hope they do the right thing. and that’s what this place is built on: hope. didn’t you tell me those exact words an age ago?”

“... hmm.”

it’s a relaxing, the release of responsibility, even if not from worry. gran guides the man up, and though there is some hundred odd years between them, the meeting of their lips is the most familiar thing he has ever tasted in his life.

“i love you, percival.”

“as do i. as does all of the crystarium. we are nothing without you.”

“i’m nothing without _ you_.”

percival grimaces. “you must stop saying these things.” and, perhaps, in this moment you do not witness, he will return to his long-winded speeches about how he will vanish before gran does, so what they have must return to dust. the exarch, however, preempts it all today with another kiss, another smile.

"one of these days you’ll marry me, and then we’ll see what the people of the crystarium really think.”

in this moment you do not see, there is embarrassment, there is the shirking of duty, and there is a great promise from a man who intends only to do horrible things to himself in the name of others.) 

* * *

upon the wind is the voice of many chattering souls. it rushes by you in a great gasp, scattering all sorts of flowery petals at your feet. you scowl and pull your hood over. belial notices and he smiles at you. sandalphon notices, and he gives you another of his longing-wishing-hating-needing looks. 

the warrior of light leads you forth, the speaker of this star at your side. she is almost a reflection of lyria, but blonde, but light, but a vessel of a woman who has been born and killed a thousand times. minfilia and lyria dance through the fallen petals and leaves, singing together. it is finally enough to snap sandalphon’s attention from you.

“you two. stop that!” and at once, the speaker and lyria both wilt, minfilia returning to the skinny waif you had found her as. “what will you do if the pixies find us?”

“are the pixies dangerous, sandalphon?” lyria chances to ask.

“that--” that, sandalphon does not know the answer to. but belial certainly does.

“oh, they’re not _ dangerous_, per se. but they don’t know how to stop playing like i do.”

lyria gives him a doubtful glance. minfilia, who has yet to come to understand the au’ra, pursues him. “what do you mean?”

“ah, dear filly. it means they won’t show you a good time like i can, and instead of taking off your clothes they’ll take off your skin-- ow! cil! you don’t need to kick me!”

but you do. minfilia looks thoroughly scarred by the conversation, though you could not bring yourself to care. when you have deviated your attention from them to turn to the warrior of light, the point is moot. floating before him is a small army of pixies, and they seem delighted at his presence, just as equally as he does theirs.

one red pixie picks herself out from the green ones. il mheg is bright colors, shining ever-brighter without the light of a moon, but she is unique. lucio acts as your spokesman, and when he is returned, the pixie is by his side.

feo ul, she introduces herself. she points you to the castle in the middle of the land, rising high above a fallen lake. that is where you will find the lightwarden, the king, the animated being that has undone the division between day and night.

“that’s where we’ve kept titania locked up for all these years,” feo ul says, fluttering between you. she gives you a nasty look when you do not bathe her in wonder, as the girls do. she does not stop before you, though, and chooses to focus on sandalphon instead. “our king, one pixie to speak for us all. they’ll just as surely play with your corpses for the rest of their days. that is, unless you ask me to help you, of course!”

“would you please help us?” lyria starts first. feo ul gives a shake of her head, glancing over.

“well now, if it’s so important, you can put more gusto into it, can’t you?”

“oh, please, won’t you?” minfilia tries instead. feo ul seems to grow more agitated, coming around now to the warrior of light.

“feo ul, without your guidance, the world will surely crumble… now. will you not assist us?”

feo ul puts her hands on her hips. “you can all do better than that! you there!”

finally, she comes to you. “you haven’t said a simple word to me! these are your friends, aren’t they? you can put some spirit into it, my little sapling! come on now!”

wordlessly, you reach out a hand, prepared to crush her tiny body between her fingers --

\-- but belial laces his fingers with yours instead. with his other hand, he takes one finger and touches feo ul’s chin. “now, now,” he tuts. “you gorgeous thing. you’re a little small for me, but who said that was ever a problem? if you don’t help us, we’ll be kind of in a bind -- so won’t you? you great, beautiful maple leaf.”

after a surprised beat, feo ul smiles, and she wraps both of her hands around belial’s finger. “now that’s more like it! i guess it can’t be helped, then. if you all truly want to bring the king down, there’s four relics you’ll need to face her…”

* * *

(there is another moment you miss. 

sandalphon and lyria are tasked with wooing the trust of the amaro. they are green birds of prey capable of mortal speech, though their lives span far longer. the smart ones know to eye sandalphon with suspicion; the others are simply overjoyed to be in the companionship of people once more, and they delight when lyria pets their feathers.

theirs is the last relic to procure, and it will only take winning the trust of the tribe’s leader. but that is easier said than done as his hundred-year-old eyes observes them wearily. sandalphon keeps his gaze like an oath. lyria begs, and pleads, but all she does is further cement them as children with a death wish. sandalphon’s ears and tail give an unhappy flutter.

“do you miss him?” lyria asks, unprompted, when they sit a ways away from the amaros’ camp and weigh on their next course of action.

“our teacher?” lyria nods. sandalphon huffs. “i doubt he misses us. i…” his heart aches, and he has been without his dreams ever since he came here. no lucifer, no x’rhun. both god and teacher are gone. what is he supposed to do?

lyria gives a little giggle, unswayed by sandalphon’s grimace. “it’s written all over your face. i miss him too. whenever we get like this, and we don’t know what to do… i try to think about what _ he _ would do. but i’m not that smart.”

sandalphon scoffs. “he would do something to save them. find out what they need by some mystical means and fill that gaping hole. but how are we supposed to find out?” he doesn’t have the charm; lyria does, but she’s too young, too bright. she’s too intense for creatures that have lived lives of loss.

“we could ask them?” lyria suggests. sandalphon sits up a little straighter. she smiles and continues with her idea. “it could be that simple! i’m sure all they need is a good brushing, or someone to talk to… all we have to do is show them we’re worth trusting the relic to! what do you think?”

but sandalphon doesn’t think. he doesn’t breathe.

because lucifer is there. he’s hardly more than vapors, but he is walking amidst the amaro, peering over them with that pensive smile of his. and when he approaches the tribe leader, he gives the fondest smile of all -- it’s far more lovely than sandalphon has ever seen in his dreams. it’s just a ghost, it’s just a hallucination. but the tribe leader raises his long neck, and it’s almost as if--

“sandalphon!”

“what?”

she’s not even flinching when he snaps any more. she just smiles. she’s gotten stronger while sandalphon has gotten weaker. and how does that happen? lucifer, why did you make that happen?

sandalphon swallows something thick in his throat.

“you want to ask? let’s ask.”

so they ask. and in the end, their task is not some feat of strength or intelligence. theirs is a burden of listening, of keeping the stories the amaro wish to share. then and only then do they receive the last piece of the puzzle to bring titania down.)

the moment you do not miss:

titania crumbling beneath your combined might; feo ul taking her place, at the behest of the warrior of light. you see the night sky restored for the first time in moons.

while the rest of the fools celebrate their victory, belial ropes you in by the waist and kisses you under the light of the full moon.

* * *

emet-selch is a presence who you understand by instinct. he imposes himself on the warrior of light like a veil, and it is clear they have -- a history. you are not privy to the details, but he makes lucio angry, tense, and that is enough. he upsets the crystal exarch, raises the shoulders on lyria, and that is more than enough. 

there is a breath where you find yourself alone with him in the crystal exarch’s abode, the others already departed after your discussion on the next lightwarden to bring down.

“in no hurry to join them, are you?”

and why should you be. they have no need of you and you have no need of them. you follow in their footsteps only to see the night sky restored. the world you came from is not the one you belong to.

“the star in which you’ve arrived does not welcome you, either,” emet-selch says, running a gloved hand over the arc in his bangs. it’s as though he’s finishing your thought.

“if you have nothing useful to say, i do not wish to hear it,” you tell him. regardless, as he is wont to do, he continues to prattle on. you distantly think of what lucio had called him -- ascian. world destroyer.

“you’re a _ mistake_,” he’s saying. “a glitch in hydaelyn’s programming. when she split the source into thirteen parts, all beings were split into reflections of their former selves. you, this star’s warrior of darkness, the warrior of light -- you’re all shades of the same person. you’re not living. not truly.”

his words hold no more weight to you than the prattling of the archbishop in the hallowed halls of the cathedral. but what you do know is these words are probably true. the world destroyer turns to you, a smirk on his face.

“so we are all mistakes,” you surmise, a brow lifted.

“hah. but you are certainly special.”

you’re no warrior of light or darkness. you’re just a man. you’re a man who is beloved by a serpent, a dragon, and you have cursed hydaelyn for everything she has given you. emet-selch gives this slight tilt of the head, as though he understands.

“the stars were not originally governed by hydaelyn. no. once upon a time, there was but one star, and it was governed by _ us _. we created things that had no names. there were no divisions among us. there was no need for the term ‘ascian,’ ‘friend,’ ‘enemy,’ simply because we were all the same.”

and what manner does a man of no division have with sharing you this? even now, he stands next to you, slightly hunched with all of the weight of his knowledge. he is trying to burden you as well, and you are supping from it. you are being drawn in.

only a man with such evil intentions could draw others in with such gravity.

“oh? and here i was hoping for some sort of reaction out of you. surely you wish to know how ‘special’ you are. you’ll not have another chance to glean this information. your goddess certainly won’t tell you.”

“she is not my goddess,” you answer stonily. that, of all things, makes emet-selch smile.

“nor is she ours. once upon a time,” he repeats, “when our own world was crumbling down, we called upon the powers of the dark. Zodiark. our God saved us. countless lives were lost to bring Him into being. countless more were decimated so He could bring us back from the brink. He did just so, but there were those among us who feared His powers. thus did the division begin. thus was Hydaelyn born, and more lives lost, so many more shattered across space.

“all we wish is to bring you back together.”

you have not felt this way in a while. your blood pulses. your eyes are in focus as you look on the man with the brown-and-white hair, the slightly expectant stare. what is he hoping for, out of you? an alliance? you feel the tug of a tale like zodiark’s. all you have ever wanted in your life is to bring ruin to the creator who made you this way.

“no reflection is special,” you murmur, your brows knitted. “and i am no _ fragment_.”

“hydaelyn would certainly have something to say about that,” emet-selch drawls. “but you would never have the chance to ask her. your source already has a reflection. and then you were created. do you not ever wonder why?”

of course you do. emet-selch continues on his path without your input. “a reflection of a reflection, and a female one, at that. hydaelyn truly has no idea what she is doing. you are ‘special’ because you were never meant to _ be_.”

and that is when you see the red behind your eyes. “i am a man. and i am no reflection,” you snap, and you storm out of the crystal abode with emet-selch smirking behind you.

you are no shade. you are no reflection. and you will bring hydaelyn to her knees, if it is the last thing you do.

* * *

ahm araeng. the heat is sweltering. belial offers to shelter you from it with his shadow, but when you take him up on his offer, he embraces you. you shove him away in a fit of anger and he laughs. 

the warrior of light does as he does best: while you keep your distance, he finds the way to the next lightwarden, helping all the souls he crosses along the way. emet-selch claimed you were the reflection of this man, and he could not possibly be more wrong. (but you know he is right. infuriating as it is, you know he is right.) the sand is thick and the buildings are made of red brick and you can feel your skin radiating away with every blast of heat.

sandalphon offers a trifling distraction. he looks headlong at the crystallised flood, the cataclysmic event stopped by minfilia’s predecessor.

“you know,” belial offers, sliding into step next to the miqo’te, “it wasn’t just minfilia’s doing. have you ever heard of the warriors of darkness?”

“who are they?” lyria asks for all of them. minfilia raises her head the tiniest bit. she has heard this story a hundred times before.

“that’s not what they were called at first,” belial explains with a sultry voice. “warriors of light -- exarchs. whatever title gets you going. they gave their lives so the speaker could stop the flood in its tracks.”

lyria furrows her brow. “but i heard it was the warriors of darkness who caused the calamity in the first place…”

“call it repentance. if you’re bad, you deserve to be punished, don’t you? and they were all a special brand of masochism.”

sandalphon is silent. lyria makes a sound of mixed understanding. minfilia drops her head again, and you look elsewhere, as the story does not interest you.

“what were their names?” sandalphon says, though, at a sudden beat.

“names?” belial hums, looking up and to the right as though pulling on a long-forgotten memory. “gabriel… michael… uriel… raphael. yeah. the four of them.”

“and the fifth?”

“ooh! sharp, aren’t you?” belial smirks. “their leader, _ the _ warrior of darkness. _the _ supreme.” he looks away from sandalphon to make eye contact with you. “his name was lucifer.”

sandalphon flinches. you do not. lyria makes another sound of curious interest, murmuring a “what’s wrong?” to her companion. belial does not look away from you.

you are a reflection of a reflection of a hundred-year-old tale. you know the face of lucifer; you know the face of lucio. you look to the crystallised flood, where lucifer would have sacrificed himself. and when you look to your right, you can see his shade, observing the very same scene. he is not perished. for whatever reason, he remains -- with you, with lucio, with sandalphon.

sandalphon looks at him two. “l-luci…”

lucifer offers a shaking of his head, and once again, he is gone. you do not need words. all you need is to know the proving of your theory right.

“come, friends!” lucio says at once, arriving upon you like a flash flood. “i have discovered the location of the next lightwarden. it resides in a place called maliak’s well. we will restore the sky to this place ere long.”

so you depart for a dark and dangerous place. you are filled with a calm that you have never ever felt. you accompany lucio without any grumbling. your mind is abuzz with thoughts, just as the sky will be abuzz with stars sometime soon.

* * *

(a moment you cannot witness: 

sandalphon, together with lucifer, for the first and last time. lucifer does not appear without lucio close behind. now, though, as the rest of you retire to the inn in mord souq, he is left alone with an apparition of the man he loves.

is it any better than his dreams? is it any worse? he passes a hand straight through lucifer without thinking, trying to grab his hand.

“... lucifer,” he says quietly, his voice raw.

“sandalphon,” he is greeted in turn. sandalphon feels tears well to his eyes at the sound of his voice.

“why are you here? aren’t you -- why are you _ here_? aren’t you a part of lucio?”

lucifer shuts his eyes. “i am and i am not. i have been cursed to walk these lands for the past hundred years… it is only you who can see me. you, the warrior of light, and lucilius. i am unsure as to why. perhaps this is my punishment for bringing about the flood.”

lucifer looks up. sandalphon can’t look away. lucifer holds up his hand, as though he wants to clutch the moon in between his fingers.

“you were a hero,” sandalphon says, “all of the stories i heard… you did nothing wrong. you could not have known what was coming. you were only doing what was right!”

“and yet here i stand,” lucifer says with a shake of his head. “my companions sacrificed their aether to stop the flood, and their lives in the process. i meant to do so as well, and succeeded in shedding my physical form -- but the speaker would not allow me to give myself wholly over.”

“she’s cruel,” sandalphon whispers.

lucifer smiles. “she is kind. you have seen her. i have followed the iterations of minfilia for some time, when i can find her. she is always trying to help others. she sacrifices herself so they may be safe -- the same way i have watched you do for lyria, time and again.”

he knows lyria. sandalphon swallows. he knows all of them, and the smile he gives is absolutely, perfectly lovely. this is…

“i’m in love with you,” sandalphon says, gathering his courage. he would have never been able to voice this in his dreams, but here, on a different star, with the night sky glowing above them… it’s different. or maybe it’s him who’s become different after all these moons.

at home, things are different. things are wrong. anywhere where you can see lucifer, speak to him, is right.

“i,” lucifer says softly, “love you too, sandalphon. but…” the objection shatters his heart before the words even come out. “i cannot be with you. i am no longer alive.”

“that didn’t stop us from talking in the garden. in my dreams!” sandalphon says. lucifer smiles again now, sadly.

“i have no idea how long i will remain. i am here still for some purpose… and that purpose involves the warrior of light. i cannot be there for you. i am sorry.”

“but… you remember all of our visits?”

“i do,” lucifer replies, “and i cherish each and every one. you were my solace in a time of great loneliness. i am sad that it has been taken away from us. but to have this chance to speak to you… i could not be happier.” he even smiles, in his distant and wanting way, the way that makes sandalphon’s stomach curl real tight.

sandalphon makes another grab at him, but again, his hands come back empty. while he beholds the way his fingers feel tingly, lucifer lights up, and sandalphon takes a hurried step forward.

“why did you come for me?” he asks desperately, lest lucifer fades before he can hear the most important answer of his life.

“i did not,” lucifer says. “i woke up in the garden just as you. perhaps it was hydaelyn who brought us together.”

this time, it is lucifer who reaches out… and before their fingers collide, he is gone.

sandalphon continues to be without dreams.)

* * *

hydaelyn, the creator. zodiark, the destroyer. they are two forces of the same coin; they are of the same kind, god and goddess created through the will of the people alone. on your star, it was no different, but gods were called primals and they were summoned in times of desperation.

desperation splintered one world into thirteen and here you are, a ‘mistake.’ you are a fragment of a fragment. you were the one overlooked by the goddess, and for that, she will pay.

“which means,” belial tells you, a finger pointed at you across the table, “metatron, bahamut, avatar -- all reflections of gods, who are reflections of people… who are the reflections of gods. sure runs you in a circle, doesn’t it?”

you’ve already lost all appetite for your meal. the others devour it with much gratitude aimed in belial’s direction. he has always been something of a cook. if it can charm people, he has that skill. “and when the warrior of light finds out?” you posit, looking in lucio’s direction. he shares his food with sandalphon and the speaker. (ryne, she calls herself now, after your pilgrimage to ahm araeng to speak with the original. unlike the thousand that came before her, she had the courage to shatter the mirror -- and now her hair is red, and her eyes are not so vacant.)

“will he continue to fight, you mean?” belial asks. “or will he give up and let this world be consumed by light? well, cil, you already know the answer to that, don’t you?”

you do. the warrior of light won’t be swayed, not by anything. bahamut did not sway him. metatron did not sway him. even the burning light inside of him, each painful purity he absorbs from the defeat of the lightwardens, has not taken him from his path. it’s annoying, to say the very least.

“it would be most efficient to kill him,” you mutter, and belial laughs. it draws the attention of sandalphon for a moment, who looks at the both of you suspiciously. lyria, on the other hand, extends the both of you a kind smile.

“and give in to the will of the ascians. you want to see this world washed over by light and destroyed. you hate the goddess that much, cil?”

scoffing, you push aside your meal and stand. “i’ve no interest in a destruction i haven’t wrought myself.”

“that’s my guy.”

you step away from the food and belial does not follow you. this world requires more research: to bring the creator, the destroyer, the warrior of light and the heavens themselves down -- most of all, it will take time.

the third starry sky tells you what little you have remaining.

* * *

there should be a place in every star that feels like home, belial tells you. he thinks he’s found his in amh araeng. (he’s lying.) when he queries the others, lucio confesses he likes the crystarium best; lyria, il mheg; and ryne does not answer.

“the rak-tika greatwood,” sandalphon confesses over the fire, speaking of the very place in which you reside now. you have already dispatched the lightwarden. the sky is dark; the people are pleased; the calm is restored. you care for none of it, but belial makes a sound.

“why’s that, sandy?”

“that’s not my name,” sandalphon snaps, but he continues, either way. “here there are no people who wish to trick others.”

“how about the everlasting dark? those guys are trying to kill everyone,” belial ripostes, spreading his legs out in provocative fashion. he gives his lap an idle slap, inviting you. you turn up your nose and return to your book.

“that’s different. naked conflict isn’t the same as trying to deceive others,” says sandalphon with a shake of his head. “and… emet-selch told us the truth here.”

it’s a sobering moment to which you are immune. that is correct. after your battle with the lightwarden, after your travelling through the maze-like pyramid of the qitana ravel, emet-selch had appeared before you to behold a kaleidoscope of ancient pictures on the wall. he had explained the history of zodiark you already knew to your companions. ryne had gasped; lyria had not known what to do. lucio had narrowed his eyes and chased emet-selch off with a word.

“... do you think it’s true?” lyria asks, after all this time. “do you think hydaelyn and zodiark are just primals? and that zodiark was the one who saved the world?”

it’s not sandalphon she’s asking; he stays silent. it’s the warrior of light. lucio looks up and so do you, and your eyes meet over the campfire. you see lucifer by his side out of the corner of your eye, waiting for that answer as well.

“i believe it so,” lucio says solemnly. “he has many reasons to lie to us, but there was truth in those paintings. but when he called us reflections… told us we were not truly alive… did you cease to feel that you were a real person? ryne?”

“n-no,” ryne says, bringing her hands close to her in surprise.

“lyria?”

“of course not!” lyria says decisively. she clutches her rapier close to herself. “i’m a person, no matter what! and we have to save the night sky for all the people on the first! of this world!”

“sandalphon?”

“... i don’t know how to feel,” sandalphon answers, bringing down the somewhat resolute atmosphere. “but i do know that whenever he opens his mouth, i don’t like it. so i can’t agree with him trying to bring about the flood.”

“ooh, nice, sandy!”

“and you, belial?” lucio asks, though you two are often excluded from such debates and conversations.

“hmm. more than anything, soldier, the thought excites me. there’s all these other versions out there of me just ready to play? i can’t wait to find them. ugh, i’m gonna--”

“... lucilius.”

eyes meet. fingers do not touch. mouths do not open. lucio rarely addresses you. you feel like you are looking at a straw through a glass of water whenever you peer at him. so you look to his side and take solace in lucifer’s presence, whysoever it may be there, instead.

“hmph.”

“so it would seem we are all in agreement,” lucio surmises. he puts on a pained smile, though his companions fail to notice the pain. absorbing the lightwardens is beginning to undo him. emet-selch will, in time, come to capitalise on this reward. “we will not let this world, the very first, fall. and with its saving, we will return to the source.”

“hear, hear!” lyria cheers.

sandalphon hums. “... i would like that very much.”

lucifer offers a silent nod to which you, lucio, and sandalphon observe. then he is disappeared. you feel him in the boughs of the trees and every leaf that scatters near the fire. you already know the path you will choose when the time is come.

you are not a reflection.

* * *

it seems every man you know is resolved to die.

belial makes a rather fetching attempt to stop you when you strike the exarch down. he lunges for you, and you swat him aside like a fly. the exarch crumples like a sheet of parchment, his magicks undone by the lapse in concentration. the sheer volume of light that lucio emits emanates like a beacon. he is brought to his knees, and he can barely gaze up at you, so much as lift a hand to help his sacrificial lamb.

“lucilius!” lyria cries in shock. “what are you doing!?”

you are standing on the white tile of the floating island in the sky the last lightwarden had constructed. you are holding out your globe, drawing the last card to decide lucio’s fate. you are interrupting the exarch’s stupid, stupid plan to give his life up to free lucio and return you to the source. you are only doing what must be done.

“well,” says a voice from behind, “i hadn’t expected to have the dirty work done for me, but i certainly won’t complain.”

emet-selch. he’s arrived to betray you all. with the last card drawn in your hands, you turn upon him, finding him smiling at the desolate sight you’ve all had a hand in creating. it’s you he beholds most of all.

“finally acting on those desires of yours, i see.”

your desires. you wish to kill the creator and the destroyer. you wish to eliminate light so there can only be dark, no substance, only entropy spread across the whole of space. your vision of the future is not that of emet-selch’s; he is too tied up in the past. he regrets. you do not.

this is why you will succeed.

“you want the exarch? take him.”

emet-selch lets out a short, hoarse laugh. with a snap of his fingers, the brown-haired miqo’te is gone, whispered off to some other place in space-time. “i’ll enjoy researching those secrets of his. as for the rest of you, i can’t say i’ve ever been more disappointed.”

he has his speech. you hold your ground. and you think, for a moment, he might offer out his hand to you; you think for a moment you might finally have fellowship with someone.

but he does not. he laughs in the face of the warrior of light beginning to destabilise, he invites him to join him in the tempest for his final moments… and he is gone.

lyria and ryne look upon you like you are a demon. sandalphon bears a face that says he will kill you, but lucio makes a sound of pain, and they are upon him first. they cry out that they will try to find a cure for this light sickness of this. you know they will fail.

belial, still on the ground, takes your hand when you offer it to him. you help him up.

“i like it rough,” he says, “but did you have to be so brutal? i’m going to feel this in my side for a sennight.”

“enough.”

“lucilius,” belial murmurs, “do you know what you’re getting up to?”

and you have never been more certain. you behold the falling warrior of light as sandalphon shoulders him, preparing to carry him back to the crystarium.

“i have always known.”

“that’s my guy.”

* * *

though there is night outside, you keep the curtains shut, in the pendants. your breaths are quiet, while belial’s are loud, and he has no problem announcing your activities to the outside world.

a thrust. a moan.

the crystarium is without its exarch. the exarch is in the hands of emet-selch. the warrior of light has not woken in days, and his companions scramble to find a cure for the light disease that is engulfing him.

another thrust, another moan. you put your hands on belial’s shoulders. he sinks his fangs into your neck.

“must you--?” you complain as he draws blood, your voice cut off by the way the pounding speeds up. belial is excited.

“just trying to make you scream,” he laughs. “maybe it’ll finally help wake the soldier up. what do you think? want to get loud for me?”

“hrmph.”

of course you won’t. belial fights you for it, anyway. occasionally, his horns graze against the side of your face, particularly whenever he leans down for a kiss.

the crystarium is without its exarch and the captain of the guard has only just held the fort down. his face is drawn whenever you see him and his red plumage is not quite as bright as it once was. no one has told him it was you who betrayed them. you wonder if they are too busy; you wonder if it is on purpose. your companions were always too soft.

“stay with me, cil,” belial says -- begs. he presses his lips against yours and draws his tongue across them. when you let him in, he strokes your teeth, the roof of your mouth, anywhere he can reach. his serpentine tongue can do things that make your toes curl.

“then do better.” if this is all belial can give you, then he cannot stop you from chasing the moon. your eyes go to the curtains. belial gives another quiet laugh and jerks your chin, your gaze back to him. he tries to behave as if he has power.

“alright then. what do you think they’ll do with us once they’re done running around like chickens with their heads cut off?”

he leans back, sits back, and then suddenly you are on top of him. you continue to push your hips down, tightening and relaxing around him as he enters. at one point he thrusts up with such strength that you seize around him, and you both shake with the force of pleasure and the raw, uninhibited union.

you push down and he pushes up and this is your relationship in summary. you are always trying to get the better of each other. you will see the warrior of light dead by this disease; belial, in his way, will try to foil you. but what hope can there be for a man who contains all the entropy in this universe? he will fall, and he will collapse in on himself, and he will bring the whole of the star down with him.

you cum to that thought alone, arching your back, moaning belial’s name. belial follows soon after, as if he were waiting for you all this time.

you fall down and he drags you into himself, throwing the sheets haphazardly away from the bed. you move to fetch a towel or something to clean yourself, but he pulls you back in. you make a sound of annoyance and he chuckles.

“this will be our last peace for a while, cil. let’s enjoy it.”

“i am not enjoying this.”

“really? i’ve always been told i was a good cuddler.”

but the buduga, belial’s tribe, do not _ cuddle_. they steal boys from their cradles and forge them into men who lust after other men. belial is no different. you have found no analogue for his people here on the first, and perhaps that is for the better.

“you miss your home,” you assume against his chest, your eyes fluttering closed.

“my home is with you, cil,” he answers simply, rubbing his fingers gently over your shoulders. you nudge your face against the scales that run down his front. “my home has always been with you. and if you want to stay here and see this place get blown to bits, then i’ll witness the finale with you. i’ll do everything in my power to make it happen.”

“liar.”

“hey, hey. when have i ever gone against you?” he asks, picking up your face and looking into your eyes. he holds a sincere gaze for one beat, two, three -- then he grins. “aside from all those times you’re thinking of right now.”

but that’s the point. belial will always betray. he’s sentimental in the worst ways, like a mountain that has its paths cut through forests just to make weary travelers see the light at the end of a long journey. he’s a machinist with a revolver to your neck. he’s a dark knight with a blade to your heart. he is your traitor, but he is yours, and he does all these things to spite you in spite of you and for the spite of you.

he loves you.

“i love you,” he echoes. “_bi chamd khairtai_, my little sapling.” 

“don’t call me that.”

“no? i thought the way that faerie named you was kind of cute.”

“i’ll cut your tongue out.”

“really? let me get my knife.”

he laughs and you grumble at him. he brings you further against his chest, solidifying your bond. he traces your ring finger idly, taking it between two of his own, holding it like he wants to propose to you then and there. but you will not let him. he has, after all, already given his question, and you have already given your answer.

“i want to see the end of the world with you,” he says honestly.

“you will.”

* * *

but in the end-- there is no end. you are defied the conclusion of your dreams. 

(lucio comes back to his feet and journeys to the tempest, where emet-selch awaits him. you and belial accompany him. you are eyed with suspicion the entire way, but they know they will not conquer the beast without your help. you are needed. and when emet-selch has been slain by lucio, the warrior of light will turn into a lightwarden of unheard-of proportions. he will bring the world and the moon down. of this you are certain.

emet-selch becomes a hideous monster embodying his fellows of ancient past. the world creators, the world destroyers: they are one and the same. lucio conquers them all.

and why? why is he not fallen? even emet-selch -- hades, as his true name is known -- cannot fathom as to why. but the rest of you can. lyria and ryne behold lucifer for the first and only time. he picks up lucio from where he is fallen, and they lock hands. in a blinding burst of light, lucifer is gone, and lucio is the one to remain.

“why!?” screams the monster. “you should be overtaken! how are you still standing!?”

and just for a moment, there is a glimpse, not of lucio or lucifer, but some other creation. it makes hades hesitate. that moment of hesitation is what costs him his life.)

the beast fades. the overwhelming dark retreats, and balance is restored. the crystal exarch is recovered, only a little worse for wear. the star is saved. _ happily ever after _.

you kick lucio down from the back, draw one of his blades and hold it to the back of his neck. it is expected; you are divested of your weapon in the next breath by two pairs of hands, ryne and sandalphon tackling you away from their hero.

“you should be overtaken,” you hiss at lucio, who stands and turns upon you, taking his blade back in hand. “you should be destroyed. if you will not fall, then fell me.”

“lucilius,” belial hisses.

lucio smiles in a pensive way so unlike him. “no,” he says. “i will not kill you. no matter your feelings now, you aided us on our journey. you are our friend.”

you are enraged. you struggle against sandalphon’s hands, but you are a healer, not a fighter. he keeps you back, observing lucio grimly.

“but we cannot exist in the same place. if we are together too long, we will become one,” lucio continues sadly. and why is he sad? he should be triumphant. absorbing you would only make him stronger, surely. you saw the difference when his blade cleaved straight through hades’ neck. “exarch -- i have a request.”

“anything,” the exarch says, rubbing some of the blood of his cheeks, ears perking up at lucio’s voice.

“are you capable of sending us back? after that, i would beg that you close the portal.”

“... it will take much of me,” says the exarch, looking at you now, “but i will do it. you are the one i cast my lot with. i will do anything you ask.”

he means to seal you here, to inflict you on the first star and return to the source. with the world saved, there will be nothing you can do to tip the balance. you are a reflection of a reflection, after all.

“let us be about it, then.”

* * *

the essential is the invisible. the visible is simple: lyria and ryne share a hug. ryne resolves herself to come to the source. sandalphon looks at lucio for the longest time, and he gives only a single nod of his head.

while the exarch draws his staff and begins to feed a portal, light dancing off of the tempest cave walls, lucio looks to belial. “will you be returning with us, friend?”

belial puts his hand on your shoulder, the other to the blade on his back. “i’m already home. go on without me.”

lucio shuts his eyes, looking briefly disappointed. when he opens them, he nods. “i understand.” and nothing more is said.

they leave the first with mercy on their fingertips. the exarch bids you two return to the crystarium with him, where you will be provided a home, a life, a history. you need not be without. but he has barely finished his offer and you are already walking away, scaling the rocks leading back to the entrance. belial follows you.

“w-where are you going!?” the exarch calls, but you do not answer him. you do not have an answer.

you still do not have an answer when you behold the waterfalls cascading, the dark shadow of the underwater chasm. belial wraps his arms around you from behind, settling his face against the back of your neck. he sighs.

“what? do you have a complaint?” you ask him, annoyed.

“oh, nothing,” belial answers. “i’ll just never see any of my family again. any of my lands. any of the tribes i grew up with.”

“you had your choice.”

“and i made it.” belial smiles against you. you feel him begin to kiss your neck, feeling you up beneath your robes. you smack away his hands and lean your head away. “say, cil. have you ever heard of a beast called eden?”

“eden.”

“it’s in the great empty. almost ninety percent of this world’s been wiped out, but eden could bring it all back. we would have to create a whole new star out of this husk. what do you think? sound like something you would be interested in?”

you look up at him. he looks down at you.

“tell me more of this eden.”

so he does. so he will. so you venture forth from the tempest and into the vastness of the great empty. perhaps you will not bring the world down with you, but you will make it rise up. a star created entirely in your vision, entirely away from the influence of your homeland, of the warrior of light. it is a chance not to be taken lightly.

you will not destroy. you will create.

you’re going to live in your lover’s arms, and you will play along, because it’s interesting. because it’s all yet to be written down.

you stay.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and summary derived from works by Richard Soken.


End file.
